Introducing the housiversary

Almost twenty years ago a friend handed me a gift at my house-warming party with the words ‘happy housiversary’. It wasn’t a term I had heard before but it stuck in my mind and I’ve used it to mark the anniversary of moving house ever since. Although it occurs in the USA it’s not in common usage in Britain, but I think it’s an excellent word in need of a wider audience.

The British seem to love anniversaries. We, or at least the media, note events, good and bad, and mark them in the nation’s diary. It might be 36 years since the UK government introduced the three-day week to conserve power, 44 years since England won the football World Cup, or 173 years since Sir Alfred Bird invented custard powder. Come the day, we roll out the old footage and hear from survivors/witnesses/descendants as appropriate.

The housiversary is of course an entirely personal event, but significant nevertheless. With the extraordinarily large outlay now required in order to buy a property in the UK, the date of completion will surely lodge in the purchaser’s mind for ever more.

So how to mark your housiversary? Depending on your budget you could plan an extension, redecorate, or just spring clean. Or why not think about giving your house it’s own personal history, a record of the people and events that have left their imprint on your property? A house history is a fantastic gift for birthdays, Christmas and other anniversaries and, now that you know about it, for the housiversary. Mine’s the first of September – when’s yours?